Windows Phone Cramping my Business Style

I have been on my 4-year old netbook this morning and working away. Okay, I also tweeted a bit and did some Facebook messaging. Fair enough. Most of the time, though, I was working. I was polishing a proposal that I had been working on for a few days. As usual, there was no public power supply and so I was running on generator power.

When the gen ran out of fuel, I just kept working on the netbook’s battery. I got the proposal completed, converted it to PDF format and uploaded to DropBox just in time. A few minutes later, the netbook’s battery ran out of juice. But, no problem; right? What’s the point of Cloud storage if not so one can access files across multiple devices? The proposal was on DropBox. Surely, I can download it to my smartphone and send it from there.

I picked up the Nokia Lumia 610, a Windows Phone 7 smartphone, launched BoxFiles for DropBox, the DropBox app that I have installed. I found the proposal and initiated download. Momentarily, I was notified that there was no PDF viewer available on the phone and saw a prompt to install it. Nice. Intelligent. I clicked to install and in a short while, it was installed and my proposal displayed. Real nice.

Knowing that WP doesn’t allow anything else but images to be attached from inside the email app, I hunted inside the PDF viewer for an option to send the file via email. Nothing. I launched Office and hunted for same option. Nothing.

What the blip is Microsoft pushing Windows Phone as a business-oriented OS for? Perhaps this has changed in WP 8? I doubt it. When I reviewed the Lumia 920, I still couldn’t attach anything other than pictures in the email app. That’s a business OS; right? Right. I doubt that the ability to send PDF files from Office has been added too.

For now, anyone who calls an OS that does not let you do something as basic as this a business tool needs to be dragged to the village square and stoned with rotten tomatoes till he recants.

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Mister Mo

Storyteller, Content Marketing god, Multiple-award winning Digital Technologist, Speaker, Trainer. Mister Mo has been using and reviewing smartphones since the days of the Nokia Communicators. Detailed Profile.

And I sure will be sorry for myself spending money on a Windows Phone only to look around for an alternative means of doing what I’ve assumed to be a standard on mobile devices. Even Apple iOS devices aren’t this crippled.

And people keep mentioning the extras introduced by Nokia devices. I think the people at Nokia are doing themselves a disfavour if they can’t add small features like this in their Windows Phone devices because their former Symbian users will surely be underwhelmed with all these little deficiencies. I hope third party apps will be able to address this. Mr. Mo, do some app hunting in the Windows Phone store for a possible solution and let the Nokia fans intending to buy Nokia Windows Phone devices that there is a workaround to this problem.

To be certain, I won’t regret so much if I could buy that Huawei device in the previous article at the price of N24,000, but is Huawei should release an Android phone with similar specs at the same price, I will simply buy the Android phone without giving the Windows Phone a second look.

Very similar with the IOS (hold on to your reins, this isn’t a imma-bash-ios comment). So I’ve decided to get an iphone (would benmy third device this year…goes to show that I’m absolutely bored) and have been doing a lot of reading to get to know ios. You gotta;

¤ jailbreak

¤download this tweak to be able to view this on safari, or send this file via Bluetooth or help you download this attachment from the email client or do this to your notification dock or that to see files within the iphone.
A tad overwhelming. I want a phone not an IOS PHD. Only my lust for hardcore mega awesome mobile game is sustaining me. I for don show ios my African backside.

Back to WP, I guess having these restrictions and gradually toning it down is their own way of “innovating”

Uhm; the Gmail Android app too is configured to only allow attachment of pictures. But the solution to enable you uploads all kinds of stuffs eg MS Documents is simply to install a file explorer/Manager app like ES File Explorer or Astro. So once you want to upload you click on gallery and choose the file explorer option.

@trae_z
Actually you can send other files via Gmail on Android without 3rd Party Apps, but you have to initiate the send process through a file manager. Well, maybe that will qualify as a 3rd Party App.

Well, this an idea. Most times to send other file types(not images0 on my galaxy s, i usually use opera mini or the 3rd party browser im using. This would probably work on wp7/8, if you used an app like uc browser or so?

WP8 is just not mature enough. That is understandable…What is unforgivable is Microsoft promoting it as a business OS and a full-grown OS. Bullshit.

When I had my Pliris Blaze (android), it was ok to handle all my tasks in a day. But when I made the Lumia my main phone, I immediately started using it with my blackberry. There’s no way I can walk out with only the Lumia and expect it to handle all I need. NO WAY!